America's
War for Reality Will Dems fight to save America? by Robert Parry

Link The real struggle confronting the
United States is between those who believe in reality
and those who are entranced by unreality. It is a battle that is
testing whether fact-based
people have the same determination to fight for their real-world view
as those who operate
in a fact-free space do in defending their illusions.

Key elements of the American Right have set up permanent residence in
the world of
make-believe, making any commonsense approach to the real-world
challenges nearly
politically impossible. The Right’s fantasists also have the passions
of true-believers,
like a cult that gets angrier the more its views are questioned.

So, it doesn’t matter that scientific evidence proves global warming is
real; the deniers will
insist the facts are simply a government ploy to impose “tyranny.” It
doesn’t matter how
many schoolchildren are slaughtered by semi-automatic assault rifles –
or what the real
history of the Second Amendment was. To the gun fanatics, the Framers
wanted armed
rebellion against the non-violent political process they worked so hard
to create.

It doesn’t matter whether Obama presents his short or long birth
certificates, he must
have fabricated the records to hide his Kenyan birth. Oh, yes, and
Obama is “lazy”
even though he may appear to an objective observer to be a
multi-tasking workaholic.

I doubt Mitch the Bitch is the
only crook making $4M a year by posing as a US senator.
As long as these guys are drowning in money, why would they change the
system?

Hundreds of women
have been arrested, convicted, jailed, detained in mental institutions
or forced to endure medical procedures as a result of the
"criminalisation of pregnancy"
over the last four decades, a new report has found.

Researchers from the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW)
identified 413 criminal
and civil cases across 44 states involving the arrests, detentions and
equivalent deprivations of
pregnant women's liberty between 1973 and 2005. NAWP said that it is
aware of a further 250
cases since 2005. Both figures are likely to be underestimates, it said.

The report, found a wide range of cases in which pregnant women were
arrested and detained
not only if they ended a pregnancy or expressed an intention to end a
pregnancy, but also after
suffering unintentional pregnancy loss.

The cases of detention and forced medical intervention varied widely
and included one in which
a judge in Ohio kept a woman imprisoned to prevent her having an
abortion.

Another involved a woman in Oregon who refused a doctor's
recommendation for additional
testing for gestational diabetes. She was held in a locked psychiatric
ward. Another case involved
a court in Washington DC, which ordered a critically ill woman to
undergo caesarian section over
her objections. Neither she nor the baby survived.

Apple's "Find My
iPhone" feature lets people track a lost or stolen iPhone
to make it easier to recover, and for the past two years, it's
mistakenly sent
dozens of people to Wayne Dobson's house in Las Vegas.

The 59-year-old dude is no thief and now has a sign posted on his front
door reading
in part, "No Lost Cell Phones." He even sleeps near the front door in
order to answer
it more quickly when angry people arrive, demanding their phones back
anyway.

The problem only affects Sprint (S) iPhones and Apple is investigating
the cause.

"It's very difficult to say, 'I don't have your phone,' in any other
way other than,
'I don't have your phone,'" he told the Las Vegas Review.

Some people say that President Obama have the option to use the 14th
Amendment to raise
the debt ceiling in case Congress fails to do so. They are wrong. Obama
doesn't have an option
to raise the debt ceiling, he has a responsibility to do so.

The Constitution says, "The validity of the public debt of the United
States, authorized by law,
including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for
services in suppressing
insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." Obama is therefore
REQUIRED to raise the
debt ceiling if Congress doesn't.

It's not an option. It's something he has to do under the Constitution.
Marc Perkel

Lance Armstrong
admitted to Oprah that he used performance enhancing drugs to win
the Tour de France, sources told ABC News.

A source says Armstrong is now talking with authorities about paying
back some of the
US Postal Service money from sponsoring his team. He is also talking to
authorities about
confessing and naming names, giving up others involved in illegal
doping. This could result
in a reduction of his lifetime ban, according to the source, if
Armstrong provides substantial
and meaningful information.

Armstrong made the admission in what sources describe as an emotional
interview to air on
"Oprah's Next Chapter" on Thursday, Jan. 17. The 90-minute
interview was Armstrong's
first since officials stripped him of his world cycling titles in
response to doping allegations.

Word of Armstrong's admission comes after a Livestrong official said
that Armstrong
apologized today to the foundation's staff ahead of his interview.

If Lance wants to go out a sniveling little bitch (not to
mention narc) then so be it
Seems a smarter tack would be, "I played by your
rules and I won, so blow me."

Since the Doping 5-0 couldn't detect anything in his urine, he was
officially clean.
Is it Lance's fault if the Dopes couldn't do their damn jobs?

He suggested we drop the expectations for bidding down to $50.
Plus, he said he's not Native American and his art isn't, either.
It's just a style of art he likes.

Subject: Art Bid Hi Bart,
I'm still financially recovering from the holidays (and now my new
shitty insurance work
has foisted on us), but I will open the bidding on the black &
white piece (The Juggler) for $50.
FrankL

Frank, thanks for that.Anybody have a higher bid or
should
we give it to Frank L for $50?

Subject:
fund-raising with art
Bart -- Interestingly, the past couple of days I'd
been thinking exactly what
Mario the Photographer suggested so
I attached a couple of photos for you:

Hope this idea
brings in some cash for you...
Steve in Nevada City, CA See more of Stephen's art HERE

LinkJustice Clarence "Slappy" Thomas broke
his nearly seven-year silence at
Supreme Court oral arguments Monday. But no one is sure exactly what he
said.

Thomas seemed to be making a lighthearted joke about lawyers trained at
his
alma mater, Yale Law School, or its rival, Harvard; the Ivy League is a
common
Thomas target. But several justices were speaking and laughing at the
time, and
Thomas’s exact comments apparently are lost to history.

When Supreme Court justices hear arguments in cases, they are normally
throwing questions
at the lawyers and interrupting one another -- it's very rapid-fire,
and all are engaged. All of them,
except one: Justice Clarence Thomas sits silent as a know on a dead-ass
tree. It was over so
quickly that some observers hadn’t realized the pity justice had spoken
at all.

Still, the utterance set off a small quake among those weirdos who
closely follow the Supreme Court.
It quickly lit up Twitter, and parts of official Washington waited for
a transcript of the proceedings or
a scrubbing of the tape of oral arguments. It prompted the kind of
intense analysis that usually
accompanies one of the court’s important decisions.

Of the many mysteries about life inside the Whore Court that puzzle the
public, the question
of why Slappy has not spoken in years (since Feb. 22, 2006), is one of
the most enduring.

Obviously
Slappy believes in that old saying, "Better to keep your mouth shut and
let
others think you're stupid than open your fool mouth and confirm their
suspicions."

Slappy's job is to sit there and then vote the way Scalia tells him to.

Subject: last issue's Mystery
Celebrity LinkBart,
that is Steve
McQueen and his first wife, Neile Adams at their home
in Palm Springs, California in 1963 during a photoshoot for LIFE
magazine. michaelgy

Subject:
donation
Bart. I know things are tough all over but I have been reading your
site since, well sometime when you were
still a one page Rush Limpballs comedy page. We've been through alot in
15 - 20 years. Keep hammering and enjoy a
little bud on me. edfromcolumbia

Ed, thanks for that.
Lately I've lost a few long-time subscribers, but things are tough.
All praise to Allah for those of you who are still working :)

Humor can get us
thru the worst of times so we will keep on.
As my buddy Ray Coleman used
to say, "Never
quit!!"

Amazon.com is my
best bet to staying on the
InnerNets.
...and if
you shop with them, you
might even
save some money.Please remember the Bartcop
Portal when
you shop online.

Our
motto for
this year is - "No Anti-Bush Site Left Behind".
So
- if you have an anti-bush site and you are choking on hosting
fees or dealing with threats - let us know and we'll help keep you
online.

We
also
have that strongest server side spam filtering on the planet.Check
out Marx
Mail for info on how you can have a Spam
Free
Email Account.